Welcome to the Islands Christian Church podcast.
Subscribe to hear a new episode every week.
Thanks for joining us. So over the past few weeks in
this, we've been in this series called make room, creating space
for the life Jesus offers you. All right, we've been talking
about, you know, what does that mean?
And basically we've been talking about the Christian idea of this
is a this is a doctrinal terms. If you're new to the church or
new to the Bible, maybe you've never heard this before.
And if you've been here the past few weeks, you've heard it
because I've been saying it. There's this doctrinal term
called sanctification, right? And you're like, oh, what does
that word mean? So we're going to start with
everybody saying it together. 123 Sanctification, all right.
And so sanctification is this word that simply means it is the
the work of the Holy Spirit. And when you become a believer,
the Holy Spirit indwells you and it is the lifelong work of the
Holy Spirit to form you into a person who resembles Jesus
Christ. All right, So when you read the
Gospels and you read this about you read about this amazing man
named Jesus, what the Holy Spirit's doing, and you become a
believer, he's actually forming and shaping you over your
lifetime to be like Jesus, to resemble him.
And we've been learning things in this series, like the fact
that if you were a believer in Jesus, then God himself, the
Holy Spirit governs your life. He's leading your life.
And as he renews our mind and we set our minds on what's true
about us, that you are adopted, that you are in the family, that
that you are chosen, that God loves you, that he's for you.
As you set your mind on those truths, then then you're the
Holy Spirit's renewing your mind about what's true about you and
you live into your identity. So Christian Christianity is not
about white knuckling some moralism.
I mean, we don't need another religion about moralism.
We have enough of those. Christianity isn't an invitation
to you to try harder. Christianity is an invitation
for you to believe better, to believe what's true about you,
that Jesus Christ has called you to himself, that he loves you,
and that he's given you a new identity.
I like to think about it this way, that when we become a
Christian God, who is the creator because he is the
creator, he's the only one who can be a recreator.
And when you become a Christian, you are recreated, you are made
new. The Bible says that if any
person is in Christ, new creation has come.
Like this is what's true of us. And this is the idea of, of
sanctification. And so, but this raises an
important question and this is what we're going to talk about
today. This is great, Stephen.
Sanctification is great. Maybe some of you are beginning
to reflect on this and, and meditate on these ideas over the
last few weeks. And, and here's the question
that we want to wrestle with today and we want to talk about
today. If this change is happening
inside of all, all of us that are believers, where, where do
we see the evidence of this? In other words, where do we
actually see our changes lived out?
What can I point to? You know, what can I say?
Look, look, this is some evidence that I'm seeing
sanctification happen in my life, right?
And so the New Testament shows us something that is quite easy
to miss, especially as Americans, because we are
extraordinarily individual. We are individual thinkers.
We, we, we are pull yourself up by your bootstraps.
We are, I mean, we are the, the, the, the people who went West
and, you know, went into the frontier like this is the, this
is who we are as Americans. But the New Testament make
something very make something very clear that is easy for us
to miss and that is this the Spirit, the Holy Spirit changes
us personally. He does, He changes us
personally, but he forms us collectively.
So he changes us personally, but he forms us in community.
He forms us collectively and that's kind of our big idea
today. So if you're a note taker, you
write that down. Now the life Jesus gives us, the
sanctification that the Holy Spirit's doing in your life, the
new creation that you are becoming, that you have become
and are becoming, that life was never meant to grow in
isolation. God intends for our new life to
grow in community with other believers.
In other words, the Spirit does not just form a new person, he
forms a new people. Like this is the message of the
New Testament. It's not just that, hey, get
saved, go off to heaven in the by and by.
Aren't you glad you became a Christian?
Now the message of the New Testament is we come to Christ.
He forms us and shapes us into this new creation.
And he is doing that to our community, to us as a collection
of people, a family. He's, he has a new people that
he calls his own. Now this is exactly what the
apostle Peter is describing in the passage we're going to look
at today. So if you have your Bibles, you
can go to first Peter, we're going to be in chapter 2.
If you have your smartphone, I don't know why I say smartphone
like you have your phone. Who's not carrying a smartphone?
Actually, I have a friend. Here's a flip phone.
I'm super envious actually, but he never text me, which is I
text him and he calls me. I'm like, I'm like, buy my phone
actually. But if you go to your Bibles,
the first Peter 2 or in your phones first Peter 2 on the
Bible app. In this passage, Peter gives us
what I believe is one of the most powerful pictures of what
the church actually is as described in the New Testament.
Because a lot of us have messed up ideas of what the church is.
And so we don't really, most of us aren't actually reading, you
know, Matthew through revelation to discover what the church is.
Most of us are basing what we believe the church is on our
experiences, what we see in the news, what we see in the media.
I, I hear people all the time criticize the church who've
never actually read what the church was intended to be.
And so, yeah, the church can be broken.
It can be messed up because I don't know if you know this or
not. I'm here and so are you.
So it's, it's a mess. The church is a mess because I'm
a mess. And you're, you guys know you're
a mess, right? OK, but just because we're a
mess and because the church oftentimes can be seen as a mess
and seen as broken because we're broken people.
The New Testament describes something quite beautiful.
And I think what we're the passage we're going to look at
today is one of those passages that describes something quite
beautiful. Now, just before the section I'm
going to read in the end of chapter 1, remember, Peter's not
writing chapters and verses. He's just writing a letter.
This is just a letter by a guy named Peter.
They really worked hard on the title, didn't they?
First, Peter. So he's not writing big numbers
and little numbers. Those were added much later,
centuries later. He's just writing.
And right before what we call chapter 2, he says something
interesting. Peter says that as believers who
are part of this church, we are to love each other deeply.
I think about that. This community of people is
called to love each other deeply.
And he says the reason you're supposed to love each other
deeply is because you've been born again.
You hear that? Born again.
Remember I said when you become a Christian, you get you become
a new creation. That's Paul.
That's what we read last week, Paul.
But here's Peter saying something very similar at the
end of chapter 1. We are born again by the living
and enduring word of God. All right, So if you're like a
critic of Christianity, don't really bind to church stuff,
that's OK, man. We're glad we love it that
you're here. Here's what's interesting about
that. You believe in love even if you
don't believe in God, because everybody, I've never met a
person who's an atheist who didn't believe in love.
And love is, I say this all the time.
My kids almost mimic me and mock me a little bit.
You know, love is one of those things you can't prove.
You can't go out to the lobby and get a box of it and bring it
in and set it on the table. But we all believe it exists.
We believe that it's a faith claim.
We believe it in faith. We believe we love our children
and, and, and if I say we'll prove you love your children,
like show it to me. Follow the science on love.
Show me the science of love. Well, you can talk about
evolutionary processes and chemicals and all these things
that are happening in your brain for the continuation of the
species that you don't eat your children so they will survive.
And that's why you feel like you love them.
OK, Well, that's not love, that's trickery, all right?
That's that's not love. And so when you hear something
like this, if you're a skeptic of Christianity that that the
New Testament says, hey, you group of Christians love each
other deeply, love each other deeply because you've been made
new. You've been born again through
the enduring word of God like God's, if that's talking about
his spoken word, God has spoken over your life and made you new.
And the evidence of that newness is that you love each other
deeply. Now if you're not a Christian,
you don't bind to the church stuff.
Doesn't that sound at least somewhat attractive that a
community of people their primary command, their number
one command as a community is to love each other deeply.
All right so from that foundation that call on us as a
crit on crit as Christians, the church.
Peter goes on to say this in verses one through 3 of chapter
2. So love each other deeply.
Verse one. Therefore rid yourselves of all
malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy and slander of
every kind, like newborn babies crave spiritual milk so that by
it you may grow up in your salvation.
Now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.
And here's our first idea this morning.
If you're a note taker, you ready the Spirit, the Holy
Spirit grows us together. He grows us together.
Peter begins by listing several sins in verse 1.
He says, you know, rid yourselves of these things,
malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy and slander.
Now these are these all sound like things we should get rid of
in our lives. Do you think our nation let me
ask you this here. Do you think if just Congress
rid itself of malice, stop there.
If if Congress rid itself of malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy
and slander, would your life be better?
Yes. Yes, if there if no one lied, no
one slandered another that were in the halls of government, how
would it be for the weak of our nation?
How would it be for the poor of our nation?
And how would it be for the wealthy of our nation?
This is this is a picture that we all desire without even
understanding why we desire it. Yeah, I would love a community
to exist without malice and deceit and hypocrisy and envy
and slander. Now, notice about these sins.
These aren't private sins. You know, this isn't like
Peter's listing out, hey, you know, stop doing this bad thing
and stop doing that bad thing that you're doing in private.
No, these are relational sins. These are things that damage
trust and destroy community. Peter is saying because you have
been born again, because you're a new creation, because you
belong to Christ, you now relate to each other differently.
You respond to each other differently, you react to each
other differently. These types of relational sins,
malice and envy and hypocrisy and these types of relational
sins, they can no longer survive in a community that is shaped by
deeply loving each other. They can't be in that.
In other words, when we deeply love each other, these things
are run out of that community. They are because to love each
other deeply means I can't have malice for you, and I certainly
would never deceive you. And I won't put on a fake front
for you and be a hypocrite. And I won't envy when something
good happens to you. I will celebrate.
I will rejoice with those who rejoice.
Why? Because I love you and because I
love you. I would never slander you.
Even if you told me some deep dark secret that you are so
ashamed of, I would not respond by putting it in the street.
I would respond, loving you deeply.
Doesn't this sound like a great community?
Doesn't this sound like something you'd want to be a
part of? Now here's the deal.
Authentic faith is revealed most clearly and how we treat other
believers. And I have been a part of some
churches and I've seen some stuff.
Have you guys ever seen some stuff?
Like we're, we're like believers Now, I'm not talking about non
believers. I'm not.
I'm talking about the House of God.
The people of God will turn on each other and burn each other
to the ground in a second. And what Peter is saying is that
genuine rebirth, new birth, being born again is revealed
most clearly in how you treat members of your family, the
family of God. And then Peter gives another
command. He says like newborn babies,
craves pure spiritual milk so that by it you may grow up in
your salvation. Now there's something
interesting in the language here.
I want to mention very quickly the word crave.
He's kind of carrying this idea of a baby who's hungry anybody.
I have four children. So they were I had two babies at
one time. Marianne had two babies at one
time, and I was raising these two babies with with her.
And when they were hungry, these little teeny tiny babies could
wail and scream and yell like nobody's business.
Do you know why they were craving?
They were craving some food, all right.
They were craving their Mama. And So what this text is saying
is that we want so badly to be mature in our faith, to be more
like Christ, that we crave deeply pure spiritual milk, that
we want the things of the Spirit to be true of us.
And we desire it. We crave it.
And that's also something very interesting in this text.
He says, like newborn babies crave spiritual milk.
So that by it you may grow up. You may grow up.
The word you, YOU, everybody say YOUYOU.
The word you in English is a bit of a problem.
Do you guys know this? The word you in English is the
same word whether it's singular or plural.
You guys know that. But that is not true in Greek.
And then what? This was what this was.
Well, this was written in it was Koine Greek, and they had a word
for plural you and a word for singular you.
And so that this you here is is plural.
It's not singular. So there there's this is
interesting to me because what Peter is what when we read this,
we read this as individuals like individualize.
We individualize it. We say, oh, I need to start
craving pure spiritual milk so I can grow up in my salvation.
And yeah, that's true. But that's not the heart of this
text. The heart of this text is kind
of in Savannah terms, more like this.
Peter's basically saying crave spiritual milk so that y'all,
y'all can grow up in your salvation.
Crave pure spiritual milk so y'all can grow up, crave pure,
crave the things of God so y'all can mature y'all.
Now if you're not from down here, use guysans, right?
Use guys. You guys can grow up, you know.
And so this is that when we read the Bible, a lot of times these
these YOU, these you, this is almost always plural.
The emphasis is on the emphasis is on community, pursuing
spiritual maturity together. Yes, the Spirit is at work and
each of us personally, but he, the Holy Spirit is assuming
something about you. He is assuming that we are
living our lives among the people of God in community, a
people who love each other deeply, who put away malice and
deceit and hypocrisy. And he says in this community,
all of you together crave the spiritual things of God.
And then Peter ends this section with a beautiful phrase.
He says this now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.
And I love this because Peter assumes something about people
in community together. Again, this is plural.
Now that y'all have tasted that the Lord is good, he assumes
something about us. And you know what he's assuming
about us who are believers in community together, He's
assuming that we don't just have academic knowledge about God,
that we don't just have, you know, book knowledge about God.
And those things are vitally important and we need those
things. But he's saying it's not just
that you've got information about God in your head.
He's saying, no, you've tasted it.
You've tasted the goodness of God.
Now that's interesting to me that he chose those words
because when you taste something that's good, what are your
reactions in response? How do you re tend to respond
and react? Like when you taste something
really good? What do you, what do you?
Is there anybody who's really expressive about good food?
Anybody. Come on.
What do you? What do you do if you taste?
Yeah, Nate's up here. Nate can cook like nobody's
business. I've had a steak this brother
cooked one time. I put the thing in my mouth.
I was like, whoa, Oh my goodness, like, I mean, I would
all I would almost like my kids are growing.
I might move into like his little extra apartment, garage
apartment or something. Just live there.
You know, you cook for me, right?
You take care of me and I but I got to bring Marianne, so you
got to cook for her too. But but you know, he cooked that
steak. He cooked a steak or whatever.
You know, that, that thing, you put that food in your mouth and
you go and it's like all the taste buds are alive and
everything just like fireworks going here, just like, you know,
you just want more of this, you know, like, please clear the
everybody move. I'm eating at all.
You know, I was at a meeting yesterday and this lady had made
a bring up, brought a pound cake.
And, and so, and it was near the end and most people were gone
and she cut a piece of pound cake.
She gave me this little piece and this little, it was enough
to make you mad, you know that. And I, I put that, put that cake
in my mouth and I was like, that's so good, That's so good.
And it was probably about 1/3 of the, you know, third of the cake
there. She's like, we'll get you some
more. So I reached over and grabbed
the Saran wrap that was in. I wrapped it all up and handed
her the plate and I literally walked out with the cake.
She goes, you want it? I said, yeah, take this thing
home. She goes, you can have it.
But it was so good. And so the language that Peter's
using here is this language of taste.
You've you've tasted that the Lord is good.
You, you, you've had an experience.
You don't just have book knowledge.
Book knowledge is important. You have to have that.
But you've gone beyond book knowledge in the sense that
you've actually experienced the goodness of God.
You've you've, you've, you've tasted, you've, you've, you've
had something happen inside of you that you can't deny.
And and do you also notice, like when you eat Nate's steak, you,
you really can't describe it either.
You know, when you taste something really good, you're
like, yeah, this is like, I mean, unless you're a chef or
somebody like that, you're like, oh, it has this in it now, you
know, But I mean, for us normal folks, we're like, I mean, I
don't know, it's just amazing. Well, tell me what you taste.
Joy, happiness, salvation, I mean, and it's the same way when
you know and taste the goodness of God, you it's hard to
describe, it's hard to put into words.
And the implication of this is that this experience of God's
goodness and the growth that flows from it happens as we live
together with the people of God. So yes, we grow in private
disciplines, we pray alone, we read Scripture alone, sure, but
the New Testament is clear. You ready?
The Spirit changes us personally, but he forms us
collectively. He changes us personally, but he
forms us collectively. So Peter begins by showing us
the Spirit grows us together. But Peter isn't finished with
the picture just yet. Because spiritual growth is not
only is not the only thing God is doing among us as his people.
He's not just growing us. He's not simply growing us, He's
also building something. And Peter shifts his metaphor,
shifts his imagery in the next verse.
He moves from the imagery of newborn babies growing on pure
spiritual milk to the image of stones being placed into a
temple for God to live in. Listen to what he says.
This is about the church. Remember, this is about the this
is Peter's description of us, the church.
Verses 4 and 5 of chapter 2, it says, as you come to him, the
living stone, rejected by humans, but chosen by God and
precious to him, you also, like living stones, are being built
into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood offering
spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God.
And this leads us to the second idea.
Peter wants to show us, you ready.
The Spirit is building us together.
So if the Spirit is growing us together #1 #2 the Spirit is
building us together. Now, Peter's using construction
language. And you got in construction
here. You know, some of you are in
construction. You get this.
He's talking about construction language here.
And he at the same time is using temple language simultaneously,
construction language, temple language.
He says Jesus is the living stone.
That's the first thing he says as you come to him, the living
stone. Jesus is the living stone.
And later he would say he's the cornerstone of this building.
So Jesus is the living stone. He's the cornerstone of this
building. He says as you come to Jesus,
the living stone, then God also makes you a living stone.
He forms us into living stones, and then God places them
together to build something. He's building something.
Now think about a stone by itself.
If a stone was out in the field by itself, it's laying there.
It's just a stone. It's just something you really
need to move so you can mow the grass, right?
It's, it's in the way. It's serving no purpose.
It's just sitting there. But when a builder comes along
and a builder is looking for stones in order to build a stone
building, then he picks up that stone and he begins to place
stones next to each other and on top of each other.
And he cuts stone and he shapes stone and he aligns stone with
each other. And those stones become
something entirely different than just a stone sitting in the
field. Those stones become a building.
They become a structure. They become, in this text
context that Peter's talking about, they become a house.
And Peter says that's exactly what God is doing with his
people. He isn't just saving
individuals, He's building something.
He's taking our lives one by one and placing them together on
Christ. Remember, Christ is the
cornerstone. Peter would say later.
He's taking our lives and he's building them one by one and
side by side on the cornerstone of Christ in this structure that
he's building with your life and my life as believers in Jesus.
The structure that he's building is he calls it a spiritual
house. Now in the ancient world,
whenever the term spiritual house was written or said,
everyone would have known what he was talking about.
He was talking about a temple, a temple in, in an Israelite
history, the temple with the Tabernacle in the temple plays a
a big important role. And everybody kind of
instinctively knows what a temple is.
Even if you're not a religious person, even if you're not a
Jesus person, even if you're not a Bible person.
If I say, oh, what happens at a temple, what might you say?
Worship happens at a temple, you might say.
Service happens at a temple, you might say if there's an altar at
a temple, depending on the type of temple it is, what else might
be happening? Most temples in the ancient
world had waltz. What else happening there?
Sacrifice happening there, right, right.
These things are these things are happening at So in in what
did they believe? What did ancient people believe
about their temples? It wasn't just a place to do
these things. It was also the place where
where their deity lived. It was their deity's home.
It was built for their to house their deity.
Now Peter says this is you got to catch this man.
The church is a beautiful thing. Peter says that God is building
you and I as believers into a temple, a spiritual house, a
place where God dwells among his people.
And so here's the thing. The temple for the God of
creation is no longer made of actual brick and stone.
It's no longer made of pillars and walls.
The temple now of God where God lives is made-up of people,
believers. God called you to himself, and
he's building us together to dwell among us.
We are the temple of God. Now, Peter's not finished with
this picture just yet because he says that inside the spiritual
house where God lives, which is us, we are the temple of God,
our community, our family. God lives among us, he says
inside that spiritual house. We so we're not only living
stones, he says we are a holy priesthood.
And maybe you grew up in a faith tradition where the priests were
like a special class of people. They were the ones closer to
God. They were the ones you kind of
had to talk to in order to kind of get instructions from God.
Well, the Bible teaches that everyone who comes to Christ is
actually a holy, a set apart priest.
You are a set apart priest for God.
And so we are not only a living stone being built into a house,
but we're also priests set apart by God to serve God and offer
him sacrifices. And it's interesting that Peter
says that the sacrifices you offer to God are acceptable not
because they're good, not because you're good, not because
you're holy, not because you give a lot of money away.
The sacrifices that you offer to God as a member of his family
are acceptable, he says, because of Jesus Christ.
In other words, the salvation you've received through Christ,
you have been made right with God.
And so that everything you bring to God is acceptable to God
because it is through Jesus Christ that you bring it.
You know, Jesus said in Matthew once that he would build his
church. Interesting words build, He
would build his church. And Peter is showing us what
that means. The church is not a building we
go to. The church is a people in
community being built together by Jesus, people who serve as
priest, representing God to one another, serving God and serving
each other. You see, we all have a very low
view of the church. It's a place we go.
We have a, you know, a preacher who got a big bald spot.
I was trying to think of something to make fun of myself
for, but we got a preacher. We got a, you know, people on
staff. We got things going on.
We have a very low view of the church.
But Peter has a very high view of the church.
He's a high view. The church is a community, a
family of people where God dwells among them and in them in
that family is a priesthood. It's it's a family of priests,
holy priests set aside to serve one another and to serve him.
This is the view of the church according to the Scriptures.
Much better than a place you go on Sundays for an hour, an hour
and 15 minutes, right? Wouldn't you agree with that?
Much better. Now here's the deal, Steven.
This is all good doctrine, by the way, if you want to learn a
new doctrinal term, the term for the study of the church is
called ecclesiology. So today we've been doing some
good ecclesiology. It's good study of the church.
We, we, we've been talking about what the church is.
It's the, it's the, it's the people of God who, who grow
together, who, who are in the, who are the temple of God and
who are priests unto God like this is who we are some high
view of the church. But Steven, this is great.
It's theoretical. How do we get in?
How do we get this into the practical?
Like how do we actually, you know, you know, let this show up
in our lives? I mean, if the Spirit is
changing us personally, but he forms us collectively, how do we
actually experience that in our church life?
I'm going to give you 3 quick, simple ways that we can make
room for this type of community. You ready real quick?
Make room for consistent presence.
Show up like God can't do anything with a stone that stays
in the field. So there's a lot of value and,
and in showing up among the family spiritual community forms
when we regularly place ourselves among God's people,
that means showing up for worship.
That means being present in small groups, That means putting
ourselves in environments where real relationships can grow.
And I'm going to tell you, as a church, we're continuing to work
hard as a leadership on creating more spaces where you can
experience that kind of community where it can actually
happen. And I'm excited because I'm
going to share something about that right before we leave
today. So #1 make room for consistent
presence. Show up to things #2 make room
for honest relationships. Peter begins the passage by
saying rid yourselves of malice to seed hypocrisy, envy, and
slander. Those are relational sins.
And the opposite of those sins are honesty, humility, and deep
love. And here's the thing where there
are honest relationships, there is no need for hypocrisy.
And Peter says this is what the church is.
Real Christian community forms. When we move past surface level
conversations. Hey, how are you, Jim?
I'm good, Bill, how are things going?
Well, you know, it's all good. When we move past the surface
level conversations and we begin to share our lives with one
another. We're not pretending anymore.
We're not, you know, pretending that everything is OK.
We're not performing anymore. But we're able to say to people,
you know, I'm struggling, I need prayer right now.
I need help. Or this one, I really messed up
and I don't know who to tell that I messed up, but I need to
tell somebody I messed up. Like we need a community where
those types of relationships happen.
So make room for honest relationships.
The Spirit builds us together when we stop pretending and
start walking honestly with one another and #3 make room to
serve others. Peter says you are a holy
priesthood. We are a holy priesthood
offering spiritual sacrifices. In other words, the church is
not just a place you go on a tent, the churches of people
that we all serve together and we're serving God as we serve
one another. The Spirit builds us.
When we move from asking, hey, who's serving me?
And we start asking, who am I serving?
How am I serving? When we greet someone, when we
serve in kids ministry, when we host a group, when we encourage
someone who is struggling, those small acts of service are part
of how God is building us together.
So make room to serve others. Make room for presents, make
room for real relationships, and make room for serving others.
So here's the truth that Peter wants us to see.
The Spirit changes us personally, but he forms us
collectively. That is what he's telling us.
The Christian life was never mean, never meant to be lived
alone. And God is building something
here. So let's make room in our lives
for what God is building now as a church.
I want to take this teaching seriously.
If the Spirit is changing us personally but forms us
collectively, then creating space for real community matters
for us as a church. And that leads us to something
exciting that I want to share with you today.
Let me invite John La Mason back on the stage here to join me
here for just a moment. Many of you know John because
he's been serving faithfully in our worship ministry for the
past four years or so. John stepped in during a very
challenging time in our church, during a time of difficult
season, and you've been quietly just blessing our church for
four years. It's been amazing as you've
served us. What some of you probably don't
know about John is that he also served as a pastor earlier in
his life and has years of ministry experience helping
people grow in their faith. A lot of that is student
ministry, right? Yeah, Yeah.
And here's a little piece of Islands history that many of you
may not know, and this may be news to you.
John actually served as the pastor of Islands Christian
Church for several years before I came here.
That was quite a long time ago, right, John?
That was quite a long time ago. Now.
I've been here 14 years, but I love this part of the story.
I think it's a really neat part of our story as a church that
God brought John back into the life of this church for the
season. I remember years ago when John
first, four years ago when he first came here, started
serving, I said, and I want to tell people, you used to be the
pastor here and you said, I don't think we should say that.
And I said, and then when I was writing these remarks to share
this news, I said, man, John was so wise sharing it.
Today is so much better over the past several months I've been
praying really years, you know, how can we continue to help
people connect to Jesus, But more importantly, I shouldn't
say more importantly, but also the connect to each other part
of our mission. And I asked John, hey, would you
consider joining our team, you know, in a part time role
helping us strengthen small groups and community life here
at islands. And after some prayer and
conversation with our elders, John said, yes, isn't that
great? So so beginning right now, this
moment, John will be serving as our part time small groups
pastor, helping us create more spaces where people can grow in
Christ together and live out the kind of community that we've
just been talking about South John, before we head out this
morning, I would love for everyone to hear a little about
your heart. So would you just answer one
question for us? What made you feel called to say
yes to helping lead this part of our church?
Well, the the short answer is this, that in all the years that
I was a pastor, my very favorite part of ministry was not
preaching on Sunday morning, wasn't playing guitar when that
was necessary. It certainly wasn't going to the
youth camp. That was hard.
You're. Good at it though.
But. It was small group environments,
being in an environment where you're just in a circle of
chairs with maybe, you know, 3-4, up to 12 people in a group
and just being able to have conversations and being able to
study the word of God with people in more of a give and
take environment. That environment has always
been, in my opinion, just so crucial.
Not taking away anything from Sunday morning.
It's a, it's a very important part of what we do on Sunday
mornings. But a small group environment is
something that can just really help people go to the next level
in their faith and in in building good friendships and
building a good community within our church to help you in so
many different ways. If you don't mind, I want to
share one more thing. Sure, we throw this up.
We got them locked down. They can't leave till I say they
can't. So you guys are probably, you
know, when you've read the the New Testament, you've seen these
phrases a lot, right? Love one another instruct one
another bear one another's burdens be kind to one another
forgive one another submit to one another teaching and
admonishing one another encourage one another, pray for
one another as each of you has received a gift, use it to serve
one another. This is all straight from the
scripture, all about when we when, when the church was being
established, it was about, hey, we want to help one another and
it's all of us, not Steven, loving and admonishing and
encouraging all of us, loving and encouraging and helping each
other out. That's how the church works
best. Yes, that's how the church
works. Yeah, that's how the church
works. That's how it works.
And so to be in a small group environment allows us those
opportunities to grow. I know that when we've just been
meeting for three weeks and, and I'll tell you, there's probably
been, I think we've had about eight or nine people each week
in the group, including myself. And in three weeks, I've gotten
to know those people really well, not just their names, not
just where they work and you know who their kids are and, and
what's going on. We've prayed for one another.
What's going on? What can we pray for you about?
That tells you a lot about a person and I learned about their
musical taste. That's fun.
They like to hit what's on your Spotify.
You know those guys. You learn a lot about somebody
from that and just spending time with people.
Those environments guys are what I love the best.
And here's the best part, when I've helped to start groups
before and a lot of people come to group for the first time and
they're like, I don't know what to expect.
I don't know what's going on here.
I'm kind of nervous and in the past three weeks, every single
week, I've had somebody make the comment to the effect of I, I
really liked this. Like.
Like in surprise. So they were like, wow, this was
like a lot better than I thought it was going to be.
I had no idea it could be like this.
So people were excited to be here.
I've seen it where we've started groups before and I'd love to
see somebody who feels they come to the group the first time and
they feel like they don't know the word of God at all.
They could never share that with anybody else.
And then in just a short time, that same person is being
encouraged and and pushed along to the point to where some of
those people in that group are now leading groups.
That's good and helping other people.
That's what we want to see. That's why groups are my
favorite thing to do you. Guys think he was excited about
doing this role. It's going to be good, right?
It's going to be good. I want someone to just say this
is possible because of your generosity, like your support of
this church's ministry, we're able to invest resources into
the roles that make the biggest impact on the lots of people.
So thank you for your generosity.
Thanks for supporting the ministry here and what God is
doing. Will you stand with me?
I'm going to ask John to pray for us.
And then if you want to come, you know, give John a little
handshake or hug around his neck.
I mean, he's been here for, you know, four years.
But dude, I'm excited. I love the story.
And I'm honored that you said yes.
I'm honored that you that you are taking the risk because I
know there's some there's some heartache there from just you
know, some stuff. And and I'm I'm also proud of
you and I'll do my best to serve you, love you, defend you, look
out for you. And then I hope and know that
you would do the same for me. Thanks you pray for us this
week. Let's pray.
Father God, we thank you for this morning.
We thank you for the worship that we've had together.
We thank you for the time we've had to remember every week that
and hopefully every day the sacrifice that Jesus Christ made
on a cross for us. God, we just we are so grateful
for your word that challenges us and and pushes us to be in a
community more than surface level and to be in a
relationship not just with each other, but in a relationship
with you God that is more than surface level.
That God you invite, that you would even invite us into that
kind of relationship is unbelievable.
Thank God. I pray that we would never take
that for granted and that as we leave this place, God, that we
would share how much you mean to us and how much we believe in
you. God, that we would share it in
our words and in our deeds. As we go throughout this week,
we pray this in the powerful name of Jesus Christ, Amen.